Flexible electronics have the potential to help monitor, and even modulate, a number of physiological parameters. While stick-on heart monitors can be manufactured as one-size-fits-all, in applications such as electronic bandages that can monitor and treat a wound, it’s best to be able to create custom devices that suit each patient’s n (Read more...)
Tag: Medicine
Laser Activated Gold Nanorods Create Silk Seal for Incisions and Wounds
Staples and sutures are currently used to seal soft tissues together in clinical practice, but researchers at Arizona State University have come up with an alternative technique that resembles welding. It may end up being used to seal tissues during surgeries and to treat wounds, and in many cases simply to enhance the effectiveness of […]
AI-Powered Motion Tracking Technology for Back Pain and COPD: Interview with Rutger Flohil, US CEO of Kaia Health
Kaia Health, a health technology company based in New York City, has developed a smartphone app that can guide users through exercises to help with back pain and COPD. The technology uses AI powered motion tracking technology to monitor users’ movements through a smartphone camera, and provides feedback on the exercises being performed. The a (Read more...)
Disc Pump for Less Obtrusive Ambulatory Blood Pressure Systems
TTP Ventus, the UK-based developer of the Disc Pump, has recently begun working on a new application for this technology – ambulatory blood pressure systems. The company claims that the Disc Pump, which is a miniaturized, quiet, and highly efficient pump, could revolutionize ambulatory blood pressure measurements. At present, 24-hour blood pr (Read more...)
Nanoparticles Inside Samples of Mucus to Measure COPD Development
Management of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) suffers not only from a lack of effective therapies, but also from an inability to track the disease’s progression. Spirometers that measure how much air patients can displace using their lungs are the “gold standard,” but that standard is pretty poor in helping to predict (Read more...)
Nanoparticles for RNA Vaccine Delivery Help Stop Melanoma Tumor Growth
RNA vaccines are a promising way to harness the immune system to fight cancers and infections. Some are currently in clinical trials, but the technology is still in its early stages. A major impediment to the effectiveness of RNA vaccines is the difficulty in getting them into the correct immune cells to produce the desired […]
Using FibroScan in The Clinic: Interview with Dr. Stephen A. Harrison
EchoSens creates non-invasive liver diagnosis medical devices. The company’s line of products, called FibroScan, work by measuring the speed of ultrasound waves as they move through liver tissue. This measurement can tell us about the state of the liver. For example, ultrasound waves move faster through fibrotic/scarred livers. EchoSens recen (Read more...)
Light Activated Compound Kills Hypoxic Tumors
Photodynamic therapy is a technique that relies on photosensitizer chemicals to generate reactive species that kill cancer cells. These compounds can be delivered into tumors and then light is used to activate them. One of the main reasons for the slow adoption of this technology is that tumors are usually oxygen deprived and the photosensitizers [ (Read more...)
XStraw Makes Swallowing Oral Meds Easier
Many people experience difficulties swallowing their medications, with kids and elderly people being most commonly affected. Crushing pills and taking apart drug capsules is usually a poor solution, since the effectiveness and rate of release of medications can be significantly altered. DS Technology, a German firm, has developed a unique drinking (Read more...)
FreeStyle Libre 14 day System: Interview with Chris Thomas, Director of Biosensing Technology, Abbott
Medgadget has previously reported on Abbott’s FreeStyle Libre 14 day system, most recently when we interviewed them at CES 2019. The company has aimed to help people with diabetes move away from traditional fingerstick testing towards continuous and minimally invasive glucose monitoring, which results in better health outcomes and overall dia (Read more...)
Machine Learning Helps Predict Risk of Heart Failure in Patients with Diabetes
Researchers from Brigham and Women’s Hospital and UT Southwestern Medical center have developed a new machine learning algorithm that predicts the risk of heart failure hospitalization for people suffering from type 2 diabetes. Their work demonstrates that among 147 different demographic, clinical, and biological data, there is an important t (Read more...)
Bacterial Swarmbots to Produce Biologic Drugs
Biologics, being a group of drugs synthesized from biological sources, are often produced using bacteria. The manufacturing processes are usually slow and laborious, though they do benefit from economies of scale. Producing small quantities of biologics is typically limited to research labs, and even there it is limited in scope. Researchers at Duk (Read more...)
Flexible Vitals Sensors Made from Graphene Sensitized with Quantum Dots
At the ICFO – The Institute of Photonic Sciences, in Catalonia, Spain, researchers have come up with a way to use graphene to make flexible photodetectors to measure heart rate, blood oxygen concentration, and breathing rate. Additionally, the technology can also be used to measure UV levels coming from the Sun and to communicate the [&hellip (Read more...)
Smart Phyjamas for Monitoring Physiological Signals at Night
Researchers from University of Massachusetts at Amherst have developed a new smart pajama, dubbed Phyjama, that can track physiological signals during sleep. Their work demonstrates that the technology can reliably measure heart rate, breathing rate, and sleep position during the course of the night. One day, advances like this can be incorporated (Read more...)
Multicolor Activated Fluorescent Dyes Thanks to Single Atom Replacement
Fluorescent dyes have transformed biomedical science. The Nobel Prize in Chemistry for 2008, for example, was given for the discovery and development of green fluorescent protein, GFP. Ever since GFP became available, scientists have been working on improving fluorescent dyes to better study dynamic processes within biological tissues. Typically, u (Read more...)
Ultrasound Otoscope to Help Diagnose Middle Ear Infections
Diagnosing infections of the middle ear is prone to a great deal of subjectivity. Antibiotics being the typical treatment option, way too many patients are treated who are actually not infected. This can result in the development of antibiotic-resistant bacteria and a host of other problems. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Photonic Micr (Read more...)
Magnetically Controlled Microbots for Drug Delivery and Hyperthermia Therapy in Cancer
Researchers in Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology in South Korea have developed biodegradable microrobots that can be magnetically controlled to deliver drugs and provide hyperthermia treatment at the site of a tumor. This latest research effort attempts to provide a delivery option for two different therapy pypes by creating biode (Read more...)
Sacrificial Ink Writing Technique for 3D Printed Organs
Researchers at Harvard have developed a way to 3D print vascular channels in large matrices composed of stem cell-derived organ building blocks. The technique could pave the way for 3D-printed organs. Creating human organs using 3D printing would help to address the current shortfall in available transplants. However, to date, this has proved to be (Read more...)
Masimo Unveils Pathway Newborn Oxygen Saturation Visualizer
The first few minutes after birth are critical in a child’s life. Clinicians generally follow the guidelines of the American Heart Association’s International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation when monitoring blood oxygenation during the first ten minutes post birth. This is usually performed “manually,” either with printed (Read more...)
Non-Invasive Liver Assessment: Interview with Echosens’ New CEO Dominique Legros
Echosens is a medical device company based in Paris, France that’s focused on diagnosing liver disease. Their technology, called FibroScan, uses ultrasonic waves to non-invasively measure the elasticity and absorption of the liver. These measurements can inform medical care teams about the amount of scar tissue and fatty content in a patient& (Read more...)